Thistle to host junior giants Pollok

Forres Thistle manager Tony Ross says “strange things do happen” as his side prepare for a mammoth Scottish Junior Cup tie against Pollok on Saturday.

Pollok are preparing to take two supporters buses up to Logie Park from Glasgow’s south side and, with Forres Mechanics’ match with Clachnacuddin in the Highland League postponed due to Clach being involved in a cup replay with Nairn County, the crowd could be around 300.

The Glaswegian visitors sit top of the West Region Premiership by five points and are one of the outright favourites for the competition.

But shocks do happen, Thistle boss Tony Ross said: "We are not expecting too much from the game but we will try to make ourselves hard to beat. You never know with these one-off games, strange things do happen.

"We are expecting Pollok to take up a few and the Mechanics game being off is a boost if we can get another few fans in.

"We don’t often get big crowds so it’s huge for the players. Hopefully they can enjoy the experience."

Thistle finished off their preparations for the match with a 7-1 victory away at Cruden Bay in the Inter Regional Cup on Saturday.

The Jags dominated from the start with most of the play in the Cruden Bay half.

After 10 minutes, the visitors got the ball rolling as a cross from Neil Moir floated in to George Knight was dispatched cleanly for 1-0.

Five minutes later Neil Moir’s cross was knocked in by Ricky Wardrop as the visitors doubled their lead.

Wardrop doubled his tally after an assist from Danny Black and, a few minutes later, Neil Moir got his third assist as he found the head of Ross Montgomery for 4-0.

And Wardrop completed his hat-trick before half-time after a magic dribble led him through to score the fifth.

Forres took their foot off the accelerator at the start of the second half and allowed Cruden Bay’s Adam Carter to slot the ball in for 5-1.

Wardrop grabbed himself an assist as he found the head of Sean McIntosh, who placed it perfectly into the net for 6-1.

Ten minutes later, a cross in from George Knight landed perfectly at McIntosh’s feet and he stayed calm to slot in his second goal and complete the scoring.

Tony Ross says the last three matches, all of which have been cup ties, two against top tier north junior sides, have given him encouragement for Saturday's Pollok tie.

He said: "I know we got beaten by Hall Russell on penalties and by Hermes, but that was tight going into the last 10 minutes when we had a man sent-off.

"With the last three fixtures being in the cup, the opposition has been tough and it has done us good playing that opposition to prepare ourselves for this game against Pollok.

"The teams we have been playing in our own league we have done well against, but Saturday is going to be a completely different ball game."

Kick-off at Logie Park on Saturday is at 2.30pm.